I go in to Eat opposite my office to have a coffee with an Irish TV presenter I’m meeting for the first time. We sit at one of the only two tables in the branch, two two-person tables side by side. The presenter asks me early in the conversation where I live. I tell him and mention that Feargal Sharkey (Northern Irish lead singer of The Undertones) also lives there. I am about to mention other music-related people in the neighbourhood, striving for a moment to recall, when I sense the person sitting diagonally opposite me, alone at the other table, perhaps four feet away, has had their attention drawn to our conversation. It turns out he had overheard reference to East Finchley. Because that is indeed where he lives too. And he is the very person I was about to name because he was in the much admired post-punk band Gang of Four. It’s nearly four years since I last saw him (when I was writing my first book). The three of us ended up having a fascinating conversation about Catalunya as the musician splits his time between East Finchley/Fortis Green (home of The Kinks) and Catalonia.

Gang of Four

12/10/17

I go to see the Basquiat exhibition at the Barbican. I notice how he uses three parallel horizontal lines for E and think perhaps I’ll adopt that for my own surname.

I walk away from the Barbican and pop into the nearby Eat for a sarnie. As I walk in I notice a prominent display (Grill Club) that uses a three parallel horizontal lines symbol.

Two really useful interviews today, both with people a bit more dispassionate about my protagonists – Tony Wilson and Allen Ginsberg respectively.

Jon in white

The first was with Jon King, singer and co-writer (with Andy Gill) of landmark post-punk band Gang of Four. He had contact with Tony through appearing on his TV show So It Goes as well as through touring (Warsaw, the early iteration of Joy Division supported Gang of Four). Their paths also crossed at what was billed as the first Situationist conference in Manchester, where Tony, Jon and a worse-for-wear Mark E Smith appeared on a panel together. Jon’s insights into autodidact Wilson’s enthusiastic interest in Ideas was a useful one and helped clarify whether he really was a pretentious ‘twat’ or not, or more importantly what motivated his creative catalysing.

David yawning (with Larry Rivers, Corso, Kerouac, Ginsberg)

The second was with David Amram, the musician and composer most closely associated with the Beats. He sees Kerouac as the prime-mover in the circle by virtue of the seriousness of his commitment to his art. We crossed paths briefly when the scroll typescript of On The Road came to the British Library a year ago. Again his non-idealised perspective on Allen was a useful counter-balance to the mythologising and smoothing of rough edges over time and retelling.

Both conversations were fascinating and free-flowing, and such encounters are without doubt the highlights of this experience and process. One point of contact between the two interviews is that both interviewees spotlighted Muddy Waters as a key person in their worlds. Jon saw Gang of Four as a blues band in essence with Muddy and Robert Johnson as core figures. David puts Muddy at the heart of American music, even though at points in the 60s it took the Brits to show the Yanks what they had.

As Jon recounted his time at CBGB’s in New York towards the end of his student years in the Fine Art department of Leeds University, another idea came to mind for a spin-off project which I initiated at the end of the afternoon with a friend of mine who works a lot in radio. A good omen was we both came up with the exact same (slightly obscure) working title.